I need some help planning my setup. I have a gorgeous 40"x60" canvas print in the center of this wall as the focal point; however, the area above my desk needs some help. I can't decide if I want to add a shelf, and some smaller pictures or another large print. I've also played with the idea of getting a large cork board and having the ability to hang/put whatever I want on it.

Any and all advice would be appreciated. Excuse the small amounts of clutter. Oh yea, my new Dell U3011 is unbelievable.

PS: I like showcasing my monster workstation: i7 3930K overclocked w/ 32GB of RAM; however, can't decide if it and the $10 Craigslist filing cabinet overpower the "look".

When sitting at a screen editing a photo your eyes adapt to the content of the screen just as they do in person to the bluish light in shade, the greenish light under trees, etc. where by eye, once your brain adapts perception, everything looks "normal" i.e. neutral. It's not a function of monitor calibration but rather your brain shifting your perception of what is on the screen.

Green subjects are the worst in that regard because most of the retina is covered with rod cells which are sensitive to a narrow range of greenish light and are about 3000x more sensitive to light than the color sensing cones in the center 2 degrees of the eye's FOV. That physiology of the eye is why we can see better at night with peripheral vision (catch movement out of the corners of your eye first) and why red lights are used at night on instruments and interior lighting. The rods don't react to the red preserving "night vision" in all the other colors.

There is a classic optical illusion that illustrates eye fatigue when looking at bright green. It's a pattern of green blocks separated by gray bars. Stare at it for a few minutes and you'll swear the bars are magenta. not gray.

The implication when editing is that if you sit and stare at just your screen while editing a landscape that's a sea of bright green your color perception may shift toward magenta as it does in person in the forest. Things that are neutral in the photo will start to look magenta and reacting visually you might perform a + magenta correction to the file, making one that was actually neutral + magenta. Since your eyes are adapted to the monitor you won't see the + magenta until monitor is compared to a print of the adjusted file. Then since you trust your "calibrated" monitor implicitly you'll think there's a problem with the printer profile.

If you have a neutral wall color and D65 room lighting similar to the white point of the monitor what it will allow you do to is take periodic breaks from looking at the screen image to look at the blank wall for a minute or so. That will be all the time it will take for your brain to recalibrate it's AWB back to neutral. Then when you look at the monitor again you'll be seeng it from a neutral baseline.

It's similar in concept to putting a gray card in an image then clicking on it and seeing the color change on screen. Color might have look OK before the correction to make the card neutral, but after the correction by before/after comparison your brain trusting the second correct view more allow you to see the color cast the file had SOOC.

It's not really necessary to paint all the walls Munsel gray. If you have D65 lighting in the room and look around periodically your brain will recalibrate to the familiar neutral objects in the room.

The graphic arts standard for viewing has long been 5000K lighting. When I ran a printing operation we would only compare transparencies and proofs in specially designed booths and light boxes and projectors with 5000K sources. That matched the color and relative brightness when comparing a slide to a printed sample. We installed 5000K high CRI fluorescent bulbs in every fixture in the faciltiy so wherever you looked at print the color perception would be the same as in the proof booth.

D65 is the better standard for computer based workflow because when you select an editing space like sRGB, AdobeRGB, or ProPhotoRGB the white point of the monitor shifts to that "shade" of white, if it's not already set that way by the monitor calibration. One of the problems with viewing on uncalibrated monitors is the "native" white point is usually way to high and bluish.

If it's not practical to change your room lighting or paint the wall gray get some Munsel gray paint and make a big gray card and hang it over your computer instead of one of your beautiful landscapes. Your eyes and brain will thank you. Just tell your friends it's one of your paintings from your minimalist period

It is interesting. You are asking a question that sits at the interface of decorating/composition. How you answer it is partly subjective preference, may depend in part on where you look from, and on practical considerations of where the workstation needs to be in relation to the desk and monitor.
As "presented" the canvas seems to hang high and the middle of the wall, perhaps to clear your lamp. There is little to balance it, and a smaller piece over the desk and lower and to the right of the canvas would balance the visual weight of furniture and the unbalanced element of the canvas up high. You may love your workstation but to my eye it is an aesthetic problem. It pulls the eye away from your canvas, it abruptly ends the visual flow from l to r as you go desk/monitor across the furniture/canvas. And few others will get much from its look. Usually an image would be placed so that viewers eye level is somewhere in the middle or upper third of the image. How does that apply in a room where people sit and also stand or walk in? You can think about what is most crucial, but it needs to go lower to accommodate closer to standing view or even lower for sitting view. Maybe the lamp gets moved to the right?

Anyhow, just a few ideas from the son of a decorator and an amateur photographer. BTW, canvas looks great.
Scott
BTW

Wow, thank you very much for the in depth and scientific responses. I always appreciate them Mr. Gardner. Unfortunately painting the walls isn't an option as this is an apartment in the city.

I have already decided to remove the computer from the filing cabinet. It now rests on the floor next to the desk and the cabinet has been move to behind the couch as I do find it useful. Scott, I'm liking your suggestion of some lower hanging work above the screens - but how low from the ceiling and what dimension? To put it in perspective, my desk is 62" wide.

I was personally thinking four 24"x16" photos centered over the desk and in the vertical "middle" of the large canvas. I know this is very subjective - but I'm literally out of ideas. My creativity is maxed in photoshop. Furniture and apartment "stuff" shopping with my parents might have been the most miserable experience of my entire life.

eskimochaos wrote:
Wow, thank you very much for the in depth and scientific responses. I always appreciate them Mr. Gardner. Unfortunately painting the walls isn't an option as this is an apartment in the city.

And I was thinking that was the most helpful reply in the thread. Seriously.

I suppose I could tell you to pick up your floor, throw out the gawd-aweful black painted filling cabinet, set the computer on the floor like normal, and use wiring harnesses - just for a start. But you already knew that I think.

I can't see the rest of the room but I guess I would also wanna rearrange the furniture. It looks disjointed and nothing seems to be complimenting anything else - especially the wall you're concerned with.